Additive manufacturing (AM), also known as solid freeform fabrication or 3D printing, refers to any manufacturing process where three-dimensional objects are built up from raw material (generally powders, liquids, suspensions, or molten solids) in a series of two-dimensional layers or cross-sections. In contrast, traditional machining techniques involve subtractive processes and produce objects that are cut out of a stock material such as a block of wood or metal.
A variety of additive processes can be used in additive manufacturing. The various processes differ in the way layers are deposited to create the finished objects and in the materials that are compatible for use in each process. Some methods melt or soften material to produce layers, e.g., selective laser melting (SLM) or direct metal laser sintering (DMLS), selective laser sintering (SLS), fused deposition modeling (FDM), while others cure liquid materials using different technologies, e.g. stereolithography (SLA).
Sintering is a process of fusing small grains, e.g., powders, to create objects. Sintering usually involves heating a powder. When a powdered material is heated to a sufficient temperature in a sintering process, the atoms in the powder particles diffuse across the boundaries of the particles, fusing the particles together to form a solid piece. In contrast to melting, the powder used in sintering need not reach a liquid phase. As the sintering temperature can be lower than the melting point of the material, sintering is often used for materials with high melting points, such as tungsten and molybdenum.
Both sintering and melting can be used in additive manufacturing. The material being used determines which process occurs. An amorphous solid, such as acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS), is actually a supercooled viscous liquid, and does not technically “melt” in the sense of a phase transition from a solid to a liquid state (the term “melt” is otherwise used in a conventional sense herein). Selective laser sintering (SLS) is the relevant process for ABS, while selective laser melting (SLM) is used for crystalline and semi-crystalline materials such as nylon and metals, which have a discrete melting/freezing temperature and undergo melting during the SLM process.
Conventional systems that use a laser beam as the energy source for sintering or melting a powdered material typically direct the laser beam to a selected point in a layer of the powdered material and raster scan the laser beam while selectively activating the laser to fuse desired locations across the layer. Once all the desired locations on the first layer are sintered or melted and re-solidified, a new layer of powdered material is deposited on top of the completed layer and the process is repeated layer by layer until the desired object is produced.
An electron beam can also be used as the energy source to cause sintering or melting in a material. Once again, the electron beam is raster scanned across the layer to complete the processing of a particular layer.